You are correct Weaver 95. And Obama will not see another term if he does not come out strongly for gay marriage and pro-choice positions. And another thing - stop blaming Bush for everything and equating him to be the most powerful man on earth. He is only human. He is not to blame for every little stinking thing! He just happened to be in the highest office "at the time" everything seems to be happening. Good lord, the man can hardly put food on his family.

rajin5b3:When the government can spend 2 Trillion dollars in taxpayers money, and not have to explain who received that money and why simply because it would cause the recipients to lose money (read - expose their horrible management), it pretty much wraps up our 232 year experiment in democracy. It was nice while it lasted.

chewd:"1. Just who do you think you are working for?2. Just where do you think the money you hand out comes from?3. Just who do you think you are to refuse to tell YOUR EMPLOYERS what you are doing?

/Try that in the private sector"

The federal reserve bank is not a government institution.

This. Which should be both illuminating and scary.

The subprime bubble was created by way too much easy credit and relaxed reserve requirements. Now that the bubble is gone, trillions of dollars of "value" have been disappearing from balance sheets.

The Fed has chosen to replace the illusionary money with "real" (fiat) cash. The goal is to prop up the artificial values held by banks, homeowners, bondholders and everyone else. It will work, by the way. It just happens to have a nasty side effect: inflation.

Once the credit freeze thaws, banks will be sitting on trillions of dollars in excess cash and will do what banks do: lend, and thereby create more illusionary money. To prevent this from being a huge Clusterfark 2.0, the Fed and Treasury must carefully regulate the banks.

But the inflation will be real.

Buy guns, gold and real estate, and make sure you finance the real estate. Debtors will come out ahead, and savers will be penalized again.

SingletonFactory:Can anyone reasonably argue at this point that we haven't been essentially held at gunpoint?

This is the price for the past 30 years of false profits. The past decade has been particularly excessive. Everyone benefited to different degrees. It was not unforeseen.

absoluteparanoia:On the one hand, I can see why this information wouldn't be released yet. For the same reason that the FDIC doesn't release its list of troubled banks that are on the verge of failure. It would cause a massive run on those banks, and a cascade effect.

If they told you that 300 of the top 500 fortune companies were on the verge of insolvency, what would people do? Stay calm?

On the other hand, the lack of any governing body to watch over these funds scares me. It's like the patriot act. Rush through legislation, call it an "emergency" and everyone votes for it and forgets about it.

We were talking about appointing a "car czar" to oversee a piddling $15 billion. But do we demand the same thing for $700B? Do we demand it for $2T?

Doesn't that strike anyone as odd?

In the era of the government fulfilling the role of the borrower of last resort, political power is not derived from giving money but rather it comes from withholding it.

absoluteparanoia:On the one hand, I can see why this information wouldn't be released yet. For the same reason that the FDIC doesn't release its list of troubled banks that are on the verge of failure. It would cause a massive run on those banks, and a cascade effect.

If they told you that 300 of the top 500 fortune companies were on the verge of insolvency, what would people do? Stay calm?

On the other hand, the lack of any governing body to watch over these funds scares me. It's like the patriot act. Rush through legislation, call it an "emergency" and everyone votes for it and forgets about it.

We were talking about appointing a "car czar" to oversee a piddling $15 billion. But do we demand the same thing for $700B? Do we demand it for $2T?

Doesn't that strike anyone as odd?

It's funny I was just on my way back from the grocery store and was tired of the same old tired songs on the radio and found a talk radio station to listen to... usually good for some laughs... and the guys there were saying the same thing.

Now, I'm against czars as a rule. But if you are going to have one wouldn't it make sense to put them where they can protect the public interest? 2 Trillion dollars and the governemnt doesn't feel that we need to know where it went?

absoluteparanoia:NeverDrunk23: Occam's Chainsaw: That's got to be one of my biggest fears, that the Bush administration is competent enough to keep utter carnage propped up juuuust long enough for W to board a plane to Paraguay. That we're already well and proper farked, and have been for some time, but that there's just enough of it up in the air that we won't find out how deep the dicking will be until early-mid '09.

The sad part is that his supporters will keep blindingly making excuses and defending him, just like they have for the past 8 years.

Its funny. If Bush didn't say that he was 'pro-life,' my parents would hate him and everything he did. That is the only thing they cared about when they voted for him.

Proof that prolifers are retarded. No one is forcing anyone to get an abortion. The only thing they are doing is keeping abortions unsafe. It's like prohibition. The "cure" is worse than the disease.

That's the only reason why my parents will be super super critical of Obama and hate anything he does, even if he did exactly what Bush did. My mother is a Bush-bot but she was always a lost cause, but my father actually admits that he really disagrees with how Bush handed alot of things like the Iraq war and the economy and other policies. That's making some headway, right?

If Obama was pro-life in their definition, they would be cheering his name up and down the street and agreeing with him. Hell, they probably would stop watching Fox News.

However this money is coming from the Feds (and my pocket by extension) if I am not much mistaken. If not, to hell with it, there won't be any deficiet spending. If the money is taxpayer dough, there is no reason not to disclose where each and every penny went. It isn't like this is top secret nuclear technology or anything.

fireclown:chewd: The federal reserve bank is not a government institution.

However this money is coming from the Feds (and my pocket by extension) if I am not much mistaken. If not, to hell with it, there won't be any deficiet spending. If the money is taxpayer dough, there is no reason not to disclose where each and every penny went. It isn't like this is top secret nuclear technology or anything.

as has already been mentioned, this whole thing stinks to high heaven.

On one hand, the government is saying that the economy is fine and not to worry. On the other hand, the fed is pumping 2 trillion into 'the economy' and not telling us where the money is going. Ok, so if we're not in trouble, then where's the money going?

If I knocked over a 7-11, i'd get what? maybe a couple hundred bucks. And I'd have city and state cops hounding me until I was safely in county lockup. But a federal regulator could walk away with $100 million and nobody would have a clue about it.

Get rid of these useless morons and let some MickeyD's manager fess up to whatever crap happened this time. If it's their money, fine, hide and lie. But I do not believe it's theirs, I think it's OURS. Present.

From the article: The Fed responded Dec. 8, saying it's allowed to withhold internal memos as well as information about trade secrets and commercial information.

Although I realize that trade secrets are exempt from FOIA requests, they should be forced to justify that the information withheld constitutes a trade secret, and not simply allowed to decide what is and isn't trade secret. Let them present it to a federal judge and he/she can make the determination. The judge should then simply allow them to redact any information that is actually a trade secret. That said, I'm admittedly unfamiliar with how FOIA proceedings work, but I think presenting everything before a judge in-camera is probably most logical.

Also from the article: In response, the Fed argued that the trade-secret exemption could be expanded to include potential harm to any of the central bank's customers

Black's Law Dictionary defines trade secret as "A formula, process, device, or other business information that is kept confidential to maintain an advantage over competitors; information -- including a formula, pattern, compilation, program, device, method, technique, or process -- that (1) derives independent economic value, actual or potential, from not being generally known or readily ascertainable by others who can obtain economic value from its disclosure or use, and (2) is the subject of reasonable efforts, under the circumstances, to maintain its secrecy."

Their argument is reaching. Even an expansive interpretation of this definition does not cover how much money they're printing and who's getting it. Harm to the bank's customers is irrelevant. The real question is whether this information allows the holder of the trade secret to maintain a competitive advantage. I've never known a court to consider the competitive rights of customers in trade secret law.

That said, trade secret law is typically the province of the individual states, so I'm curious to see how this plays out, and what law would apply.

queezyweezel:Whats amazing to me is that back in 2002, a coworker of mine insisted that Bush was planning on bankrupting the fed, and making his friends rich. I laughed back then, and now I realize she was right.

There are quite a few things like that, that were bandied about early in Bush's first term that I dismissed as crackpot. Most of them have happened or sound far less crackpot than they did seven years ago.

I can't remember what conservative made the comment in the 80's but to sum it up his idea was that farking up government agencies to use that evidence that government agencies are bad was a great tactic to get what they wanted, no government.It kinda makes sense in light of all the Bush appointees that came from backgrounds as being against the mission of said agency. Like putting the anti-birth control guy in charge of birth control funding and policy. Or a big business advocate in charge of the agency that overlooks consumer safety.

You do realize that this is the result of the policies of George W. Bush - a nominal Republican president?

Or did you seriously want to try and blame this on Obama...? Before (and if) you answer, you should be aware that Obama has not yet been sworn into office, nor does he possess the ability to travel backwards in time or mind control hapless lame duck republican presidents.

All of you jackasses passing around myths about the Federal Reserve that you probably picked up from Aaron Russo's "America: Freedom to Fascism" or "Zeitgeist" or YouTube videos inspired by these or a few other cult conspiracy films, be aware that you might as well have learned biology from a Baptist preacher.

Look, I hate Bush as much as the next sane person but honestly he's just one pawn in the game. He's been systematically assisted by congress and our governments over the last 100 years have slowly moved power to themselves.

What really surprises me is that other people are surprised. U.S. history is full of examples of the rich funneling tax funds to their friends and companies, and now everyone's aghast because it's.. still happening? C'mon.

And there won't be a revolution over it, or the lawless society so many of you yearn for. You'll just take it, like you always have.

NoLiving:Look, I hate Bush as much as the next sane person but honestly he's just one pawn in the game. He's been systematically assisted by congress and our governments over the last 100 years have slowly moved power to themselves.

ZipSplat:It's an oldie, but a goodie. Chances are if you're in here talking about how awful the Fed is or how bogus fiat currency is, you are talking out of your ass.

No, we're talking about how government coverups are never a good thing. Look - if this was a publicly owned company and they refused to tell shareholders (or federal regulators) where they spent 2 trillion dollars....well I doubt that company would get away with it. there would be SOME sort of consequences to that action.

NoLiving:Look, I hate Bush as much as the next sane person but honestly he's just one pawn in the game. He's been systematically assisted by congress and our governments over the last 100 years have slowly moved power to themselves.

I don't think Bush is even awake through much of this. It is waaay over his pay grade.

All of you jackasses passing around myths about the Federal Reserve that you probably picked up from Aaron Russo's "America: Freedom to Fascism" or "Zeitgeist" or YouTube videos inspired by these or a few other cult conspiracy films, be aware that you might as well have learned biology from a Baptist preacher.

Go here (new window)and unf*ck yourselves.

It's an oldie, but a goodie. Chances are if you're in here talking about how awful the Fed is or how bogus fiat currency is, you are talking out of your ass.

from the webpage you cited:Facts: Yes, the Federal Reserve banks are privately owned

ummmmmm, and now 2 trillion is missing. it dosnt take a rocket surgeon to put the peices together corky...